Cinemax’s ‘Banshee’ Wraps Solid First Season

As all eyes are on the ratings for last night’s Season 2 finale of HBO’s Girls (expected any minute now), the season-finale numbers for Banshee, which airs on HBO sibling Cinemax, also came out today. While not as noisy as Girls and other cable series, the freshman drama executive produced by Alan Ball, which was already renewed for a second season, had a solid freshman run. Its season finale Friday drew 455,000 viewers at 10 PM and 655,000 viewers for the two plays on the night. That is the largest audience yet for a Cinemax original series finale and third-highest for Banshee. Even before the finale, Banshee (average of 433,000 viewers in Live+Same Day/727,000 in Live+7) already outranked the two seasons of Cinemax’s Strike Back (303,000/512,000 for Season 2, 290,000/441,000 for Season 1).